Born into a wealthy Straits Chinese family with shipping and plantation interests, Tan Cheng Lock was an early beneficiary of the economic growth of Malaya under colonial rule. He invested especially in rubber and banking. He also acquired great familiarity with the classical European philosophers and in later life frequently used his knowledge to enliven his political discourse.

He first entered public life through the Straits Chinese British Association during World War I and in 1923 was appointed to the Legislative Council of the Straits Settlements, emerging there as the most outspoken of local Chinese leaders. Campaigning against the “pro-Malay” policy of the time, he argued for a united (and eventually self-governing) Malayan society in which all ethnic groups, immigrant as well as indigenous, would have equal rights. In 1933 he became the first Asian member of the Straits Settlements Executive Council, in part, perhaps, because of his support of the government’s ban on the Kuomintang the previous year and his strongly expressed view that Malayan Chinese should be loyal only to Malaya.

During the Japanese occupation, which he spent in India, Tan Cheng Lock formed an Overseas Chinese Association designed to exert some influence on British post-war planning, though it seems probable that it was less concerned with political matters than with economic reparations. The Malayan Union scheme, with which the British returned to Malaya, proposed a unitary state with a common citizenship. The plan was similar to that sought by Tan Cheng Lock, and its rejection by the Malays drew him more directly into political activity for its support, sometimes with such strange bedfellows as the left-wing coalition known as the All-Malaya Council for Joint Action. When the outbreak of the Communist Emergency in mid-1948 interrupted all legitimate political activity, Tan Cheng Lock was among a small number of politically safe figures who from late 1948 took part in the British-sponsored CommunitiesLiaison Committee, designed to lessen communal discord and work toward national unity. When the Malayan Chinese Association was formed in 1949, first as a welfare association and then as the first, full-fledged, centrist Malayan Chinese political party, Tan Cheng Lock was an almost inevitable choice to head it. He remained its president up to and beyond independence in 1957, though increasingly in a titular role.